


Connections

by FortuneSurfer



Category: Per qualche dollaro in più | For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Genre: Gen, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27290860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortuneSurfer/pseuds/FortuneSurfer
Summary: Challenge accepted! Written for my friend's prompt.
Relationships: El Indio/"Manco" | The Man with No Name, El Indio/Douglas Mortimer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Connections

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Goodoldhumpy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goodoldhumpy/gifts).



Indio knows it, of course. Senses it, but can’t quite put his finger on it.

He knows that the man in black is a bounty killer, but he also knows what a man craving for money looks like, can see it in Manco, who seemingly doesn’t want to kill him all that much. So he knows that the other wants him dead for other reasons. Personal reasons. It feels different when it’s personal. Indio can still recall the dull pain in Tomaso’s eyes, the absolute clarity of his miserable want.

And the man in black, with his measured words, his derisive smiles and pauses, clever tricks, guns hidden up his sleeve, his perfectly calculated, hateful patience, already has killed him in his mind multiple times. He is waiting now because he has already waited for a long period, and having arrived at where he wants to be, he is stretching the victory, enjoying the control he believes to have. He thinks he is toying with Indio like a cat with a mouse. Except Indio is the biggest and most dangerous lion out there. So dangerous that they preferred to cage him for eighteen dragging months in the hope of wearing him out with time, and pain, and humiliation. And they paid all the more for it in the end.

But he truly is disadvantaged by his ignorance; to plan wisely, Indio needs to remember. As much as he hates it.

He does when one day he notices a delicate chain hanging across the man’s middle glint in the afternoon sun. A chime he has heard a thousand times starts to play, and Indio abruptly stands up only to realize that it’s playing in his head a few shocked seconds later. It’s promising the end of all time.

From there on Indio starts to see a distant reminder of a young beautiful woman from the picture in his pocket watch in the features of this cold, stoic man. Indio also remembers learning about five from six of his men on a mission being murdered one night, years ago, as the one the killer let go would tell him later. Indio remembers the name of the brother of a ghost, who challenged him to meet him and pay his debt in an honest duel. Colonel Douglas Mortimer was that name.

When he meditates on the realization with a cigar that calms his nerves, Indio is yet again shocked – to realize that in a way, he knows the stranger better than anybody. Better than his partner (although, Indio might have gotten closer to Manco, too, since the beginning of their stay in Agua Caliente).

To discover a connection so visceral is strange and fascinating. Only Mortimer knows about what happened that rainy night, nobody else has ever found out, not even his loyal Niño. And moreover, Indio has never escaped the thoughts of the man for many, many years.

Indio keeps thinking about it, still wondering, when the man asks him: “You keep staring at me, Indio. Is there something I can help you with?” 

Indio replies honestly for the same reason he never got rid of the watch.

“There might be, _señor_. I have a question on my mind, and you might help me answer it.”

Suddenly, everybody in the tavern is listening to their exchange: all his men wary of Mortimer after he killed Wild, and Manco must be afraid to be disclosed with him. Indio uses it. He indicates everybody with a broad gesture kind of including the rest in their conversation. Mortimer across him looks at him with the familiar hard expression in his eyes. Although by now Indio has also learned to see the vulnerability behind it.

“Look at these men,” Indio says. “I know who all of them are, men that could hardly be more dissimilar. And when they will all get their share of the loot, we will all embark on our separate ways because of our differences.” His tone is appeasing, assuring, although it is and never was going to happen; but Indio still has appearances to maintain. “So, I’ve been thinking for days: what could prevent that?”

Groggy dismissively smirks from his bank: “It’s nice to be loved so much that you don’t want to let go of us, Indio.”

“If you believe in it, Groggy.”

“Huh, believe in what?”

“Love. But if it exists, I imagine, it must take time.” Indio meets Manco’s eyes and looks away. “There are other things that create connections in this life. What are they?” Inviting everybody to deliberate with him, Indio uses the pause to sit himself down on the bar counter, not too far away from the tense Mortimer; it’s a habit, he is used to addressing his people from above after living in that church. “And forget about the damn money,” Indio growls. “All it does is separate.”

When he goes on, Indio is inspecting everybody in the room, reading their faces. Perhaps even their thoughts.

“Is it promises? Maybe it is blood, in family relations or spilled in a fight? Lust? Shared past, good and bad? Trust? Loyalty? Wherever they come from. And, mind you, connections don’t have to be pleasant. They just need to be meaningful. Like secrets.”

“Did you find the answer?” Mortimer asks him, harshly. 

Indio directs all his attention towards him.

“Yes. I did. But I want to know what you think, _señor_. After all, you’ve proven to be a very intelligent man. And there is a chance that the answer I found is wrong. So, in your opinion…” Every single person in the room tenses up in the next moment because Indio places his hand on Mortimer’s shoulder. And when the man looks up at him in surprise and then in recognition, baring the hurt he bears inside, Indio asks him, feeling a strange and acute, regretful intimacy of understanding years of pain that could overshadow everything else: “What does it take to make even two strangers bound to each other more firmly than friends or relatives?”

He isn’t the only one feeling all the years of that connection because Mortimer gives him a correct answer. Slowly, and quietly, he says a short, ugly, all-encompassing word.

“Sin.”


End file.
